Mears comments that the same pressures - for verification, rather than development of new theory - is once more a problem:

In an era in which researchers are pressed by demands for scientifically based research and a "predisposition towards the glorification of the work of scientists and the technologies it produces", the time-honoured traditions of storytelling that once brought togetherancient peoples around stone fire-pits wold seem to be of questionable value.

She advocates that the time has come to re-evaluate the relative importance of verification and research:

Yet, it is perhaps the nature of those ancient echos that gives power to the story and allows the expression of significance and meaning to be heard on a deeply resonant level, a level at which experience can be witnessed and outcomes understood.